Xi ‘exploiting’ Putin’s weakness as Russia is now ‘totally dependent’ on China | Timothy Ash

Xi ‘exploiting’ Putin’s weakness as Russia is now ‘totally dependent’ on China | Timothy Ash

and actually the Chinese angle is interesting another conclusion is perhaps not for me but for the Chinese and going back to that performance of Russian military technology it’s performed so badly and the Chinese essentially use the same variants if you were the Chinese looking at the the failure of Putin in Ukraine you would also think on Taiwan can we well one one conclusion is don’t get involved in a war that you can’t win and I would I think the Chinese would be questioning their ability to win a war in Taiwan quickly because of how po poorly Russian military technology has performed and again they use a variant of it so I think it’s reduced the chances of a Chinese attack on Taiwan at least for a few years until they perhaps draw some conclusions in terms of how Russia performed military and reform their own Army because of it the US ambassador to Beijing has said effective that China has effectively sided with Russia what do you see as China’s long-term strategy and what opportunities do you think it sees that that it can exploit in this war well I’m not sure I necessarily agree with him I would argue that actually uh the Chinese could have done a lot more to spot Russia in the war they’ve tried to avoid been you know they they certainly haven’t provided significant Military Support the fact that Putin has to go to North Korea to beg for Munitions uh and also he’s dependent on Iranian drones suggest they’re not really getting that much from the Chinese the Chinese have been very mindful because their their key relationship is not with Russia it’s with the US right I mean the Chinese story is they want they think that globalization is still really important to their economic the ultimate economic hemony with the US right that’s what they want they want normalization on global markets they want the Americans to stop imposing tariffs and they’ve kind of used the the war in Ukraine to suggest to the Americans that maybe they shouldn’t be overly aggressive in terms of its tariffs and its restrictions on Chinese um Chinese exports to the US and I think that’s really been the case the Biden Administration have pulled its punches really in terms of what it’s done on China because it knows if it’s overly aggressive the Chinese will go all in in supporting uh Putin in Russia in terms of Russia CH Russia China relations the two are not natural Partners particularly there’s a lot of tensions between the two the Russians are obviously very worried longterm about its Far East you know they have this huge expans of Terr with no people in it and lots of resources the Chinese have lots of people and not many resources so you know uh they’re worried about Chinese encroachment on territory uh the Chinese exploited the Russians they’ve exploited Russian weakness they’ve uh they’ve taken because of sanctions they’ve basically taken lots of cheap Russian Commodities knocked down prices and as I said they they’re also charging top dollar prices for exports to Russia um and and interesting if you think of the Beijing Olympics just prior to the invasion uh early 2022 the Russians were making a big thing about the fact when Putin arrived in Beijing that they were equal Partners uh what is crystal clear now is they’re not equal Partners Russia is very much the junior dependent partner and and Russia’s I think Global position has been much eroded because of this invasion you know in the end me many people think that Putin is a genius many UK politicians have suggested that the reality is Putin’s got dragged into a war that he hasn’t been able to win and it’s 2 and a half years later huge loss of soldiers half a million uh huge loss of economic res I would estimate something like a trillion dollars have been lost to the Russian economy because of the war Russia’s status globally massively reduced again this idea China Russia clear Russia is totally dependent now on China uh so I think you know in the end uh this is not really a winning strategy from Putin so how long do you think Moscow can afford financially and politically to fight the war in Ukraine well you know it it still has reserves it’s a police fascist State Putin controls the media narrative he can force people to the front lines Russia is still a huge country big population 140 million people um but what I would say is you know the longer the war goes on the the bigger the risk to Putin have another progan I mean it’s remarkable you remember one year ago progan and his troops the Vagner brigades were a couple of hundred kilometers outside Moscow we were all looking at the flight data to see if uh Putin and Medvedev were fleeing that’s only a year ago uh the longer it goes on the there is a risk of something happening within the country against Putin and I’m not sure he’d particularly want to risk that you know the longer the world goes on it doesn’t get any better for Russia more casualties more loss of economic power more erosion of its International standing I would think eventually Putin I I think actually Putin would probably want to talk peace now um the question is obviously you know what the deal would be whether the ukrainians will be willing to negotiate uh but I think perhaps towards the end of the year there may be some scope for some kind of negotiation when you stand back from this in your position um what are your takeaways from from the whole experience since the fullscale invasion well uh We’ve realized fortunately Russia didn’t win you know if you go back to those first few days Western intelligence thought he would invade and thought it would be over in two weeks thank God that didn’t happen imagine a scenario that he had won in two weeks all those bad scenarios I pointed out tens of millions ukrainians moving West social political instability in Europe a massive increase in defense bending as a result uh potential for Putin to go further he would be energized he will be cocky arrogant confident where would Putin stop thank God the ukrainians held the line it’s bought’s time it’s bought us time to realize the threat from Russia remember macron made the famous statement just prior to the invasion that the NATO is brain dead it’s not brain dead anymore it’s Crystal Clear who the threat is what what it is and what we need to do we need to increase defense spending uh to improve our defenses uh against future threats from Russia um and also I mean in the end you know uh Russia is a relatively small economy $1.8 trillion dollar the West is $40 trillion more than 20 times the size of the Russian economy we have unbelievable uh Power uh to uh to make sure Putin doesn’t win we’ve been too constrained in the use of that power now I think it’s interesting we’ve all leared as the the war has gone on I mean initially I think we all thought that Putin had escalation dominance he cared about Ukraine more than us uh he he was you know willing to do anything to stop uh Ukraine and stop the West in Ukraine you know he’s what we’ve now learned is he is actually scared of the West he does we set red line or he sets red lines doesn’t keep them just think over here that uh initially we were very careful about the supply of conventional equipment you know big debates about t72 mig29 highas leopard tanks f-16s long range missiles you know lots of reasons why we shouldn’t do it we’re worried about what Russia has done would do actually on we’ve supplied those weapons and he hasn’t had there’s been no reaction there’s been no reaction because I think Putin realizes Russian military technology is massively underperformed in Ukraine massively know second generation NATO kid has basically beaten fourth generation Russian kid he knows in a direct confrontation with NATO Russia would lose very quickly because of the massive technological advantage so I think it’s moderated what he’s done I think the other interesting angle is he hasn’t used weapons of mass destruction uh people thought he would I think one of the factors there has been China China I think has given guard rails to him the Chinese have said don’t do that that would be massively disrupted to Global markets we don’t want that um and actually the Chinese angle is interesting another conclusion is perhaps not for me but for the Chinese and going back to that performance of Russian military technology it’s performed so badly and the Chinese essentially use the same variance if you were the Chinese looking at the the failure of Putin in Ukraine you would also think on Taiwan can we well one one conclusion is don’t get involved in a war that you can’t win and I would I think the Chinese would be questioning their ability to win a war in Taiwan quickly because of how po poorly Russian military technology has performed and again they use a variant of it so I think it’s reduced the chances of a Chinese attack on Taiwan at least for a few years until they perhaps draw some conclusions in terms of how Russia performed military and reformed their own Army because of it so lots of things to take out from that one is thank God thank God uh Putin didn’t win initially we now know how weak Russia is actually he’s scared of the West uh you know he he respects power we have uh you know we we can come we can deter Putin we have the power to stop him to deter him but we’re afraid to use that power to deploy that power uh and also as I said the other conclusion is I think Taiwan will be sorry China will be less reluctant to take action in Taiwan which is a positive I guess a very interesting thought to end on thank you so much Timothy as it’s been great talking to you my pleasure you’ve been watching Frontline for times radio with me K chabo my thanks to our producers today Louis SES and Morgan bdick and for you for watching if you’d like to support us you can subscribe now or you can listen to times radio for the latest news and in-depth analysis or go to the times.co.uk for now though thanks for watching bye-bye

“It’s clear Russia is totally dependent now on China. So in the end, this is not really a winning strategy from Putin.”

Chatham House’s Timothy Ash says China is ‘exploiting’ Putin’s weakness from the war in Ukraine.

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